BERKELEY - Behind seven different goal scorers, the California women's lacrosse team defeated Mercer, 18-8, Sunday afternoon from California Memorial Stadium. All seven scorers tallied at least two goals, and four Golden Bears registered hat tricks. Cal improved to 2-1 on the season. 

Susie Ropp, Kirsten Swanson, Caroline Corzel and Marisa Kuberra each scored three times while Parker Garrett, Nikki Zaccaro and Eliza Christman found the back of the net twice. Swanson added two assists, as well, giving her five points on the day. 

"It feels awesome, amazing," head coach Brooke Eubanks said about all the different scorers. "This is what we preach to the team. It's not about who scores, it's about how we score. It's about taking advantage of the best opportunity. It's really exciting to see so many people have an opportunity to score a goal because of what the offense is doing as a unit."

Defensively, the Bears clamped down on the Mercer offense. Cal caused 11 turnovers and Mercer totaled 18 for the game.

"It really comes to down to discipline," Eubanks said. "It might be counter-intuitive because you feel like aggression and taking risks are what causes turnovers, but for us, our style is being disciplined, doing what we do well, communicating, backing each other up and then the end result comes from a caused turnover."

Elizabeth Koehler, one of the team captains, caused two turnovers while also garnering three ground balls and five draws. Fellow captain Meredith Haggerty picked up four draws, two ground balls and one caused turnover. 

"They're great leaders," Eubanks said about the captains. "They do a great job of spreading their leadership throughout the field, not only on the defensive end. Having that much leadership on one side of the ball is huge, and I think our defense has stepped up as a whole."

One advantage Mercer had over the Bears in the first half was with draws, so one of Cal's second-half adjustments was switching to Chloe Landry on the draws and she delivered, posting a game-high of six. Her efforts helped the Bears edge Mercer in that category by the end of the game, 15-13. 

"We put Chloe Landry in on the draw and she found her groove, whether it was drawing to herself or getting it to her teammates," Eubanks said. "She really stepped up huge. I would say, stat-wise, we pretty much swapped halves from first to the second in draws."

Jenny Wilkens secured four ground balls, giving her 94 for her career and that total ties her for seventh in school history. 

The Bears head east to face UConn next on Friday, Feb. 23, followed by a matchup against UMass-Lowell on Sunday, Feb. 25.